If Elected, Abe Promises to Visit War Shrine
Posted on 04/02/2006 11:44:21 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
The front-runner to succeed Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi suggested Monday that he would visit a shrine honoring Japan's war dead if elected, despite the damage such visits have done to Japan's relations with China and South Korea.
Speculation has been building about whether Chief Cabinet Secretary Shinzo Abe would follow Koizumi's example and keep up the Yasukuni visits or avoid them for the sake of repairing relations with Beijing and Seoul.
"I would like to continue putting my hands together for those who died for our nation and pray for their souls," Abe said without elaborating when asked if he would visit as prime minister.
Koizumi has prayed at the shrine in downtown Tokyo five times since taking office in 2001, provoking increasingly strident protests from China and South Korea.
They consider the visits a glorification of Japan's conquest of East Asia in the first half of the 20th century. Among those honored by the shrine are several people executed for war crimes.
Abe made the comment as he rejected an offer by Chinese President Hu Jintao to end an apparent moratorium on meetings with Koizumi if the Japanese leader would stop visits to Yasukuni.
"We cannot accept the Chinese position that the entire responsibility of the current difficulties that Japan and China face today falls on the Japanese leaders," Abe told reporters.
Abe is favored to replace Koizumi, who has said he will step down when his terms ends in September, despite his continued popularity.
The visits to Yasukuni, which also hosts a history museum that seeks to justify Japan's imperialist wars, are part of a spectrum of issues that have brought Japan-China relations to their lowest level in decades.
The two countries are also feuding over the ownership of natural gas deposits in the East China Sea, the reach of Japan's Exclusive Economic Zone in the Pacific, and the content of sections of Japanese history books about the wars of the 1930s and 40s.
Tokyo has also repeatedly criticized Beijing for not being transparent enough about its military spending. On Sunday, Foreign Minister Taro Aso repeated his earlier assertion that Chinese military expansion presents a threat to the region.
China has announced double-digit spending increases for its 2.5 million-member military nearly every year since the early 1990s. Beijing, however, insists it is open about spending and has increased military exchanges with other countries.
In addition, Japan on Friday renewed accusations that China used spies to pry state secrets from a Japanese diplomat in Shanghai, ultimately driving him to suicide in 2004. China has denied the claims.
At least he's honest about it. You know, honest Abe...
(gomen nasai)
Japan is the be trusted much more than china. I know the aussies are becoming vassals of the chicoms but com'on Japan is a peaceful democracy and the most advanced country in asia.Communist chinese propaganda to divert attention away from their own miserable government. Its the oldest tactic in the book. The US is with Japan.
the=to
typo master :/
LDP is the only "Conservative" party of Japan. The Democratic Party is not extremely to the left but something identical to the Democratic party of US, and the rest are on the left, pro-China/anti-US. You don't want these people in power. These leftists would be a threat to Australia as well. Either go along with Abe and the LDP or suffer with unfriendly pro-China parties.
Let me get it straight. There are no graves (the body of the dead of those executed for war crimes) at the Yasukuni shrine. It is only a symbolic facility.
So have I -- in the 60's. At that time, the Japanese were very embarassed by the "disabled Pacific War veterans" in ragged Japanese uniforms who gathered near the entrance -- begging...
If Elected, Abe Promises to Visit War Shrine
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